Divorce in Texas: what to expect
What a divorce in Texas actually involves: how property is divided, how long you must have lived there, what you have to prove, how long it takes, and what the court is deciding about the children. Texas is a community property state. Property acquired during the marriage is generally owned equally by both of you from the moment it is acquired, whatever the paperwork says.
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Every line below is taken from the statute or the court, and the citation is next to it so you can check us. It is still not advice about your case. The same statute produces very different outcomes on different facts, and the parts that decide your outcome — the length of the marriage, who earned what, whose name is on what — are not on this page because we do not know them. Use this to know what questions to ask, not to predict an answer.
Texas at a glance
Every row is cited. Where a row says we could not confirm it, that is exactly what it means — we went looking and would not guess.
| Question | The answer in this state | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Property division | community property | Tex. Fam. Code § 7.001 |
| How it works in practice | In a divorce decree, the court shall order a division of the marital estate in a manner the court deems ‘just and right,’ having due regard for the rights of each party — not automatically an even 50/50 split. | Tex. Fam. Code § 7.001 |
| Residency requirement | At least one spouse domiciled in Texas for the preceding 6 months, and a resident of the filing county for the preceding 90 days | Tex. Fam. Code § 6.301 |
| Waiting period | Court may not grant a divorce before the 60th day after the petition was filed | Tex. Fam. Code § 6.702(a) |
| The no-fault ground | Insupportability — the marriage has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marital relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation | Tex. Fam. Code § 6.001 |
| Filing fee | Set locally by the clerk, not statewide. Check your county | — |
| Alimony | Called ‘spousal maintenance’ (Tex. Fam. Code ch. 8). A court may order it only if the seeking spouse will lack sufficient property (including separate property) to provide for minimum reasonable needs AND either (a) the other spouse was convicted of or received deferred adjudication for family violence against the spouse or the spouse’s child within two years before filing or while the suit is pending, or (b) the marriage lasted 10 years or longer and the seeking spouse cannot earn sufficient income for minimum reasonable needs, or (c) the seeking spouse has an incapacitating disability, or is custodian of a child of the marriage with a disability requiring substantial care. Duration is capped at 5 years (marriages under 10 years with family violence, or 10-20 years), 7 years (20-30 years) or 10 years (30+ years), and the monthly amount may not exceed the lesser of $5,000 or 20 percent of the obligor’s average monthly gross income. | Tex. Fam. Code §§ 8.051, 8.054(a)(1), 8.055(a) |
| Custody standard | (Texas calls this ‘conservatorship’) best interest of the child | Tex. Fam. Code § 153.131 |
| Any parenting-time presumption | Rebuttable presumption that appointing both parents as joint managing conservators is in the child’s best interest (concerns joint legal decision-making, not necessarily equal physical time) | Tex. Fam. Code § 153.131 |
Grounds: what you have to say happened
The no-fault ground in Texas is: Insupportability — the marriage has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marital relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation. Tex. Fam. Code § 6.001
Fault grounds still exist here. They are rarely worth using and they make a case longer and more expensive, but they exist, and in some states they can affect property or alimony:
- cruelty
- adultery
- conviction of a felony
- abandonment
- living apart 3+ years
- confinement in a mental hospital
What is unusual about Texas
The things that surprise people who assumed their state works like the one they read about.
- Texas is a community property state that does not mandate an even 50/50 split — courts must divide the estate in a way that’s ‘just and right,’ which case law allows to be unequal.
- Texas uses distinct terminology (‘conservatorship’ rather than ‘custody,’ ‘spousal maintenance’ rather than ‘alimony’) that can confuse comparisons to other states.
How long you were married. Almost every alimony statute in the country turns on it, and most have unwritten thresholds judges apply. Whose name is on what. It matters far less than people expect in a community property state and far more than people expect for a house bought before the marriage. Whether either of you brought money in. Separate property stays separate until it is mixed with marital money, and then the argument is about how thoroughly. The questions that decide it are here.
Compiled 31 August 2026 from Texas statutes and court sources, each linked in the table. Re-read line by line against the statutes on 3 September 2026; every row above was confirmed or corrected at the official source that day. Statutes change, and several states have changed theirs recently. Tell us if we have one wrong.
Keep reading
- The Texas divorce kit — forms, fees and deadlines
- Legal help in Texas you can afford
- Who gets what — the questions that decide it
- What a Texas divorce costs
- What two households cost
- What people wish they had known